


About Love, Otherwise known as Literature.

by DucklingExtravaganza



Category: Persona 5
Genre: As much as it can be, M/M, Mostly exploring narrative styles, Narrative Experiment, The only line that connects this is that they’re all gay, for kicks and for fun, slow-burn, vaguely connected one-shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DucklingExtravaganza/pseuds/DucklingExtravaganza
Summary: Joker and Crow fall down a rabbit holeOrExploring the depths-depths of consciousness.





	About Love, Otherwise known as Literature.

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest reference here is Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, that’s all you need to know, really.

There was little sense in chasing a particular shadow down into the depths of Mementos, yet Joker seemed set on the skirmish. Crow could almost see his black gentleman-thief attire change into a frilly periwinkle dress and his gorgeous black locks change into golden British hair, while the shadow of a horned gold rabbit (pretty strange if you asked Crow, but this _ was _the metaverse) held in its hand a horned gold clock and muttered to itself “I’m late, I’m late.”

(None of this was happening, clearly, but Crow’s mind couldn’t help but draw the obvious parallels). 

Crow followed after him, of course, or at least that’s what he was doing before finding himself sliding down the depths of Mementos in what seemed an endless black hole of sincerely pukeish aesthetics. Red and black just hurt Crow’s eyes and he couldn’t help but gag just a little bit when he saw who was his companion on the maybe eternal fall.

And if Joker was deep in thought while he fell down the (rabbit?) hole, then Crow was about to lose his mind at how calm he was about the whole thing. Weren’t both of them about to die? Had Joker not processed that yet? Unlikely, since Joker was anything but careless (he was, however, a dick, and maybe he was pretending to be unimpressed just to be a dick to the aforementioned Crow, who was, by the way, still losing his mind). 

They stood in awkward, near-death silence. Until Crow spoke up because dying on a ditch with Joker still lording his smug demeanor over him was literally the last thing Crow wanted in life; if Joker were to die he should at least do it in the range of emotions that go from disorientated to agonizing. 

“So you are aware we are going to reach the end of this fall and die, right?” Crow inquired. Death disorientates most people, Joker could be one of them.

Joker, curse him, was still not impressed. “What makes you think that?” 

“The fact that we keep falling, mostly.” Crow stated blithely.

“Are we?” Joker seemed actually surprised about that one. Progress to a good last expression. Point for Crow. “Uh, it would seem like it.” Joker said and looked down, but saw nothing as deep as he could see, naturally. “But why would we touch the ground? Maybe we can keep falling forever.” 

“Things that fall are meant to hit the ground, there’s a thing called gravity.” 

“There’s no gravity in space, and we are, technically and practically, occupying some space right now.” Both a preschooler and a philosopher’s answer. In the end, Joker was both things, or something in the middle.

Crow was fully intended to die as he lived, he decided, arguing trivialities with Joker. “That’s _ outer _ space, where there isn't gravity. Not on Earth.” 

“But we aren’t on Earth right now, we’re in the Metaverse. Isn’t that outer space enough for you?” ‘Don’t be greedy,’ he forgot to say, or maybe Joker didn’t want to be rude.

That was… fair, in a way. “It’s closer to Earth than, say, the space station. It’s possible that gravity reaches here too.” 

“That makes sense,” Joker conceded, regaining his ‘smug but deep in thought’ expression. Fuck. “But I don’t think the ground will be so rude as to interrupt our conversation mid-fall.” 

“It could, though. Aren’t you afraid?” Crow realized then that perhaps Joker was simply not afraid of death and that were true it would… really throw off his plans. He considered asking him point-blank. Now or never, he supposed; he didn’t want to be disappointed when he pointed a gun to Joker’s head and the other simply sighed and said, ‘Oh, okay’.

That was a scarily real possibility. Crow would stop feeling excited about his murder plans if that were the case.

“We’d have to consider whether this is Japanese cognition or a worldwide cognition,” Joker, thank god, interrupted. “If it’s Japanese, the fall won’t kill us until we’ve ended the conversation, but if it’s, I don’t know, American, it’ll just kill us when we get to the best part.” Whatever ’best part was’ was better left up to interpretation, as not to die on the spot if they ever discovered what ‘the best’ meant.

“And what could ‘the best part’ be?” Crow, who was tired of safety, asked.

“We are building up to that; in any case, this is pretty boring so I’d say we are safe for now.” 

That shut Crow up for a while, because just how dare Joker tell him his conversation is boring? He’s an intellectual for Christ’s sake! He can come up with a good conversation topic!

“…”

He couldn’t, it seemed, because there was no way to restart a talk that had ended so abrudely (abruptly and rudely, because making words up seemed like a natural thing to do in this ridiculous situation). Joker didn’t seemed interested in saying anything else either, just awkwardly coughing strategically every time the end of the fall got closer because the silence had gone on for too long. That way the ground could know they still had something going on that they had to finish before their inevitable deaths.

“Hey Crow,” Joker said, abrudely interrupting Crow’s stream of consciousness. “Are you tired of failing?”

“You mean falling,” Crow said, very tired of Joker’s and the Metaverse’s bullshit.

“Same thing.”

“I assure you they’re not. I’m falling but I don’t feel like I’ve failed.” Was this about his murder plans? This felt awfully like it was about his murder plans. 

“You’d be falling if you capitalized the ‘i’, but as for now, you’re failing.” Ugh, yes, this was definitely about his murder plans. How did Joker know them or why Crow didn’t feel as bothered as he should have been about Joker knowing them could probably be chalked up to the fact that they had been going down this hole together for between two minutes and a lifetime. It just felt natural that Joker knew him more intimately, in that moment.

“I don’t need your sass. Do you have a plan or not?” Crow emphasized the ‘i’ in ‘TIred of your bullshIt, Joker’.

Joker didn’t get the memo. “Yes.”

The silence remained.

“Are you going to tell me?” Death couldn’t come any sooner, Crow thought.

“Tell you what?” asked Joker, the dick.

“What the plan is.” ‘Obviously, you absolute obtuse asshole.’

“I’m thinking of something to say that will definitely end this fall. Something that both ends a conversation and is the best part of it.” 

This much anticipation wasn’t good to Crow’s blood pressure. “Pray tell, what could that be?”

“I’m not sure I want to stop falling and start failing.” Had Joker just blushed? Looked away a little? Doubted himself there for a second? Crow could be in heaven.

“We’ll be both dead anyway in a matter of seconds, so it’s up to you,” he said, more out of curiosity than suicidal or murderous ideation.

“Okay.”

Joker slowly took off his mask along with his confident expression and left it falling nearby. He looked completely bashful, now, his naked face blushing, thinking about the words forming in his mouth and mind.

“Hey, Crow,” he said once again, annoyingly.

“What?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Crow’s eyes opened wide as his head hit the floor. 

Ah, the floor was American, and awfully abrude.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I want to continue stuff in non-conventional forms of writing and using shuake to do it! I mostly want to see what I can do or how I can play around. 
> 
> Follow me in twitter @MagicoQueque for the shuake goodies and more nonsense from yours truly.


End file.
